– Javeed Alam

Hyderabad is in flux. Unbelievably rapid and far-reaching changes have been taking place in the city over the last few decades. Let me start to unravel these by taking two unusual emblems, both of which I would like to look at as indicators of the ‘epic of modernity’. The burqa – a veil the Muslim women wear which extends from head to toe and covers the body – is visible across the city. The burqa is ubiquitously present even in the most posh and modern areas of Hyderabad. The rickshaw – the tri-wheeler, manually driven and used to commute – has nearly disappeared from the city. It is now rarely seen even in the poorest and most backward areas. The few that are left carry goods. Hyderabad had the largest number of rickshaws compared to any city in India; it was once referred to as the city of rickshaws.

The presence of the burqa in the posh and modern areas and the absence of rickshaws in the poorest and backward areas is somewhat of an incongruity, a departure from the expected, and therefore calls for attention.

How can the burqa be part of the epic of modernity? Well, people have read it, as is the wont, as a rise of conservatism and religiosity among the Muslim community. It may or may not be so; I think it is a bit of both, as in all communities in India. But that is, I presume, the wrong way of looking at the problem. What has actually happened is that the invisible has become visible, all too quickly. Purdah – keeping the woman’s body from public view – has always been common among conventional Muslim families. Only 30 years ago, education and employment were very uncommon among Muslim women who came from simple, lower middle class backgrounds. Most Muslim women lived their lives in the confines of the home, rarely going beyond the circle of relatives. But the observance of purdah was quite common when in the public domain. Covering oneself with a chadar – a long unstitched cloth to cover the face and body – was enough. A sea change is taking place without any fundamental shift in attitudes to the women’s body or person. What has been changing is the socio-economic context within which life is being lived.

Those who were very poor are still quite poor with some degree of marginal upward mobility. But what has rather pronouncedly changed is the life of the lower middle classes. A sizeable section of these groups have seen a noticeable upward movement in income and life opportunities. Education has seen an enormous expansion. And what is unusual is that it has been a trend set by the women. More often Muslim boys have preferred to go abroad, to the oil rich Middle Eastern countries and have bailed their families out of destitution and hardship. There is extra income available for meeting the necessities of life. Women in these families have taken to education in a big way; the girl child is making the best of the opportunities available within the constraints of religious conventions. The emphasis is on technical and job oriented education
including the emerging frontier areas of IT education.

What we see as an increase in the visibility of the burqa is actually women out in the public sphere, educating themselves and working in sectors of economy which were completely hidden from their view even twenty years ago. More often, these women credit it to the grace of God (!), the Allah of their faith. They meticulously observe their religion and the burqa is seen as an integral part of their world. How much of it is imposed by the men in the family or reflects their own desire is difficult to say.

Where is the burqa most visible? Around the colleges and educational institutions, IT coaching centres like NIIT, the commercial establishments, offices, and so on. They ride with burqas on their motorbikes and mopeds and fill up the seats reserved for women in the buses. It is not like Saudi Arabia where the women are forced to stay at home, and venture outside only when accompanied by their men. These women are more often alone. They go together to ice-cream parlours and beauty saloons and sometimes chat in public places with their boy friends. We know they are Muslim women, but unlike other women we do not know how they look, their faces are hidden but their work is as visible as that of any other women. They inhabit the modern world but modernity, as yet, remains undefined to them. What will happen in the future is uncertain. History will no longer be a guide. I am not sure if this poses a problem; I would rather see it as a challenge to understand the way in which the world is changing.

The story of the disappearance of the rickshaw is far less complicated. In the mid1970s, auto-rickshaws (three-wheeler, mechanically driven, mini-taxis) made an appearance. Over the next 15 years they slowly replaced the rickshaw. In the 1970s and early 1980s Hyderabad was viewed as a city in decline. There was though a noticeable migration of people to different parts of the world for work. Where one went and for what kind of work varied a great deal in terms of social status and the consequent levels of education. Nevertheless, Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad in particular contributed a good deal to the making of the Indian diaspora. Among the Muslims, a lot of people from among the lower and lowest middle classes went out, especially to the Middle Eastern countries following the boom generated by petro dollars.

Secondly, in the 1990s, there was a burst of growth in construction activity centred on the building of flyovers, commercial establishments, and multistoried residential complexes, followed by the making of the HiTech city. New opportunities opened up for different kinds of work. A couple of factors contributed to the change. With some money coming in from migrant relatives living abroad, and opportunities opening up with the expansion of the city, people shifted to auto rickshaws, construction work, repair and maintenance, and other such activity. What facilitated this was the slow expansion of education coupled with quotas in employment for Dalits and Other Backward Classes (henceforth OBCs); the poor moved into adjacent blue and white-collar jobs. (Of the few rickshaws that have remained, it is the Dalits who have been left behind, plying goods in rickety ones. The rickshaw puller as a group comprised of Dalits, Muslim and some OBCs.)

The disappearance of the rickshaw does not mark the end of poverty ; it only indicates a relatively pronounced decline in destitution, though both are still present in a visible way. It is the story of marginal mobility into adjacent positions requiring higher skill levels. And this, I think, is important in that it is a source of self-esteem and therefore also marks a demand for recognition as equals. Ideologies based on egalitarian values informed by community commitments are in the ascendance all over. This, therefore, is also the source of new aspirations.

The priorities in the family have undergone a major change. People now strive for better houses – the old type of hut will no longer do. They want to see their children in schools, to better their lives. The mental horizon of choices is expanding, adding to those margins of freedom where life undergoes redefinitions. This process has been facilitated by the steady working, despite its infirmities, of democracy. The democratic process is opening doors and people are moving out, against all odds, into new spaces where different demands from the world await them. How these are being met are the new biographies being written by ordinary people. Within the successes achieved, tragic endings and mental pathos is also visible all over.

If we put these two developments together, the appearance of the burqa and the disappearance of the rickshaw, a shift of immense consequence lies below, hidden from view, which needs to be drawn out. I would like to suggest here, a little audaciously, that everyday life for the people of Hyderabad has become of central importance. What matters for them most are the rhythms of ordinary, this-worldly life. It is the open side of modernity, unencumbered by universal values, the central importance of the mundane and ordinary in the making of ones happiness.

I am not suggesting that religion has disappeared or become less important. In fact, it is quite to the contrary. It is more visible and, perhaps, matters more today to both Hindus and Muslims. But it does not, and this is the great change, trump everyday life as earlier. The simultaneous presence of both, religion and everyday life, and their increasing importance at the same moment, reminds me of a comment Marx made that modernity is the ‘contradictions of progress’. And this is what an epic, as a genre, is all about.

(Excerpted in fond memory of Javeed Alam, by MA Moid. Seminar 585: City of Hope, May 2008 (pp 42-44).